Gray
by motchi
Summary: An "almost dark" fairy tale, a "not-quite" love story. Sephiroth/Tifa multichap. Post-KH2.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts (unless you count the original game) or any of its characters. Come to think of it, I might've sold the game. So I own nuthin'.

First posted in 2007. Reposted for **Joanie**, **Feathered Dust (asylumiss)** and the anonymous, but fabulous **Lindsey**.

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**PROLOGUE**

It took her a year to learn she was invisible.

Well, perhaps not quite a year, but eleven months and twenty-one days came awfully close.

In hindsight, it probably shouldn't have taken her that long. There had been clues, after all. Every town, village and city she had traveled to she had asked the same questions: "Have you seen a man? He's this tall, but his hair's this tall. His eyes are blue. He has hair the color of lemons, the sun, that sign over there. He doesn't talk much, and he carries a sword nearly as big as himself. Have you seen him?"

And every town, village and city had given her the same answer: indifferent silence looking anywhere but at her.

Finally, a small, brown, chittering animal with a curly tail and a tiny, red, overturned bucket on its head told her A Big Secret. It wasn't her accent, it wasn't the arrangement of her freckles, it wasn't her choice of clothes or her penchant for black, or any other avenues of blame; nothing was ever that simple. The reason why no one had seen him yet was because no one had seen her.

A blazing sunset was not on hand to illuminate this important revelation. A wandering breeze did not idle by to stir the hair at her temples into a picture-perfect moment. Time did not slow itself to make the act of blinking seem wondrous and ethereal. Sweat ran down her temples, courtesy of a too-bright sun. Her hair stuck to the back of her neck. Her backside was numb from thinking too long on the rooftop of a noisy, bustling, desert-colored city. She was unglorious, and unprepared to deal with the sinking reality that she was not who she used to be.

She had been black hair and brown eyes once. She had been two inches shorter than the top of his head, but six inches shorter than the top of his hair. She had been a scar at her hairline. She had been skin that rarely sunburned. She had been a chipped bicuspid. She had been two arms, two legs, and a heart that still dreamed of waking up to a sunrise that didn't hurt.

_But that was before_, she thought. _Now, I am invisible...and something else_.

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Comments are appreciated!


	2. Chapter One

Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts.

**AN:** I thought I could repost this chapter without editing, but no such luck. Some substantial and some not-so-substantial changes have been made.

* * *

**CHAPTER ONE**

_He was the faintest of touches against a bare knee the day she decided to stop resisting him._

_"There you are," he said, smiling. "Put that down and pay attention to me." He snatched the book from her hand and closed it with thud._

_"Cloud! I was reading that," she protested._

_"Page three hundred and twelve, Tifa—you can go back to it later." He jumped up and pulled her to her feet. "Now, come on. Let's go find some happiness under a tree somewhere."_

_"Yeah, happiness." Like the kind she found in his blue eyes. "There's not enough of that anymore," she said, and stole away with him to find some. _

_

* * *

_

The flighty, giggling butterfly had been no help, nor the snake who had wound its way down a slick branch for a closer look at her. _He_ was not there, never had been, and now she was hopelessly lost in a forest that smelled of ripe earth and future rain, trying to coax answers from a pretty purple plant.

_Have you seen a man? He's this tall, but his hair's this tall. His eyes are blue. He has hair the color of your leaves. He doesn't talk much, and he carries a sword nearly as big as himself. Have you seen him?_

"You won't find him in there, you realize."

The voice came swooping in unexpectedly, like a bat at midday. A rich baritone, full of dark and dangerous things. Tifa sprang to her feet and confronted the speaker with raised fists.

"Is this how you greet old friends, Tifa?" Sephiroth asked.

In his long, heavy attire, he looked just as lost as she, as if he had made a wrong turn in some shadowy lair and stepped into this humid wilderness on accident. He was a stark absence of green, an ominous shadow amid the vibrancy that flowed around them. His lone black shoulder wing beat a lazy current into the air as he leaned against a fallen tree, and Tifa was ashamed at how much emotion was unburied by hearing her name, by finally being _seen_. She had to angrily remind herself that the last time she had seen this man was the last time she had seen Cloud.

"Where is he?" Tifa demanded. Her knuckles cracked. She dug her toes further into the dirt, readying herself to launch, swing, punch the answer out of him. "And we were never friends, Sephiroth."

"True," Sephiroth agreed. "But perhaps this cold shoulder of yours is why you've been unable to find him. I don't need to tell you how unbecoming it is."

It was a backhand to the face, delivered from twelve feet away. And to further the insult, her eyes began to sting. "What have you done with him?"

One of Sephiroth's eyebrows curved upward in surprise. "I've done nothing with him," he insisted.

"You've seen him, though, haven't you?" Tifa pressed. Her voice sounded all wrong to her, all wobbly and strained and pleading, yet she couldn't help it. "I know you have and I know you know where he is."

Sephiroth plucked a large red beetle from his shoulder in disdain and flicked it into the trees. "Possibly. Or possibly not. Take your pick."

It was hopeless. Tifa wished he'd never appeared. She wished he'd go back to wherever it was he took a wrong turn from. She wished she could run away without fearing an impossibly long sword in the back.

"Nothing to say, darling girl?" There was a spark of amusement in his eyes.

"No," Tifa answered, and looked away. "I have nothing to say."

Sephiroth scoffed. "You should know better than to lie to me. Aren't you dying to ask me what he said when I saw him three days ago?"

The words burst out before she could stop them. "Yes! Tell me!"

His tsking sound reminded Tifa of a buzzing mosquito. She wanted to snatch it from the air and crush it. "'I told you not to lie to me," Sephiroth said. "Now if only you treated yourself with the same care."

He pushed off from the trunk and started slow, deliberate steps toward her. She watched his effortless grace with an appalled fascination, observing the way his hair swayed around a forehead unblemished by a trivial thing like sweat, the way the two wings at his side kept their pinions clear of dirty roots and weeds. When he was near enough to make her nerves crackle and hiss, he asked in a sweetly moonless voice, "Does the darkness bother you, Tifa?"

"Go to hell, Sephiroth," she said, voice steady for once.

"What a coincidence." He was a slow, syrupy trickle from her ears to her spine. "Those were his words, too. Only," he paused for dramatic effect, "unlike you, he wasn't alone."

The tip of a leather glove trailed down her cheek, mapping out the path a tear might take if she allowed it. It might have been a caress, Tifa noted, but his eyes were the wrong kind of blue. "Perhaps," Sephiroth said softly, "the reason you can't find him is because he doesn't need you any more."

Never mind running away; his words were just as treacherous, a blade slipping through hope instead of muscle. Old fears sprang from their hiding places and rushed to fill the wound. She wanted to howl and shriek and double over at the poison he'd purposely left festering within her.

"You're lying," she said, knocking his hand away and raising her fists again. "You're just trying to get to me_._"

Sephiroth smiled. "Am I?"

But before she could answer, there was a sudden flurry of black wings, and in the place where he had been standing the jungle was green again.

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Comments are appreciated!


	3. Chapter Two

Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts.

**AN:** As before, I thought I could repost this chapter without editing, but no such luck. Some substantial and some not-so-substantial changes have been made.

Also, the octopus princess tale isn't from any existing fairy tales. It's my creation.

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**CHAPTER TWO**

_She slid into the small lake with a nervous giggle. If her father ever found out about what she did after he went to bed..._

_"I've got you, Tifa." Steady hands caught her. His voice was accompanied by the sounds of swirling water as he took them further out, until they were submerged in stars. _

_"Will you ever not have me, Cloud?" she teased, slinking her arms around his neck._

_"Not if I have anything to do with it," he answered._

* * *

She was engulfed in a sea of tears, according to the eight-armed creature who introduced himself as Blue-Ringed Octopus. Long ago, he told her, a princess of his kind had fallen so in love with the sun that each night was like a small death to her. It took nine years for all three of her hearts to break, and in that time, the princess had cried enough to change the taste of the ocean.

It was a sad and bittersweet tale, a lump in Tifa's throat as she floated away. Was there such a thing as empathy through osmosis? Though she had only two arms and one heart, she understood an ocean's worth of grief. She wished she could barter away her lungs to be a dappled, underwater blue-green, to remain under the sea and be forever surrounded by leagues of someone else's terrible yearning.

Surfacing was like a punishment. Her breathing sounded too alive to her ears; her limbs, which had never failed her before, felt too heavy. The sunset was too bright, too red, too indifferent. As she blinked the salt from her eyes and struck out for shore, she wondered when reality had become so unsympathetic and ugly.

The cove she was paddling toward might've been an exception to that. Its inlet arms beckoned to her as if inviting her in for an embrace. Its white sand and tall, swaying trees offered their apologies for being made of rock, leaves and bark instead of salt and tears. It was picturesque and beautiful, and a "wish-you-were-here-Cloud" kind of thought added just enough melancholy for her to forgive its perfections.

_I do wish you were here_, she thought, as she trudged her way to the beach. He would've liked the the way the water was clear enough to see the colorful little shells and pebbles at the bottom. He would've splashed her, and she would've chased him, and he would've laughed at her, and she would've kissed him, and afterward they would've lain on the beach together, counting the stars until her hair dried.

She felt the first slip of tears just as she became aware that she wasn't alone. Sephiroth was sitting next to her pile of discarded clothes, forearms resting on knees, watching her heart break as she came up from the waves.

"He wasn't down there, was he?" he said. It was more of a statement than a question. "He doesn't strike me as a fins and flippers type."

"Then why did you ask?" she retorted, sniffing and wishing she had set out in more than just her underwear. She wasn't exactly naked, but she noticed the way his eyes refused to stay in one spot. The ocean. Her legs. The shell next to his boot. Her wet, probably see-through bra. The ocean, again. Finally, her eyes.

"It was a rhetorical question," he answered.

Her blush irritated her. "Why are you here?" Tifa asked, snatching up her clothes from the sand and retreating to a spot behind him.

"I'm paying you a visit, of course." His lone shoulder wing snapped open and inserted itself between them like a screen. "I assumed this would be an obvious answer," he said, the dryness in his voice slightly muffled by feathers.

His consideration, as unexpected as a worm in an apple, made her pause. She locked herself in ten seconds of debate before deciding to take advantage of it. She quickly stripped from her wet underwear and hopped one-footed into her shorts. "Yes, but why are you paying me a visit?" she said to his back. "Last I knew we were enemies. You're trying to get to me, remember?"

"Am I?" Sephiroth said. A sea bird landed near the shore; his hair stirred below his wing as he turned his head to look. "I've never hated you, Tifa."

Tifa caught a glimpse of his profile, stern and arrogant as ever. "You've never liked me, either," she pointed out, pulling her undershirt over her head.

"True, but my dislike is indiscriminate. It was never anything personal."

Mulling that over, Tifa threaded her arms into her vest and zipped it up. She wondered, again, what purpose—if any—was behind this visit. His overtures bordered on friendly today, and it was almost uncomfortable to hear and see him without his usual mocking tone or customary sneer. She stood there with her wet things in her hand and an uneasy, squirmy feeling in her gut, as if this change in Sephiroth meant she had always been wrong about him.

"I'm judging from your silence that you'd rather we talk of something else. Something less...personal?"

Tifa came out of her musings to find him looking over his shoulder at her with a neutral but expectant expression. She made a show of moving her shoulders in a half-hearted shrug. It wasn't like she had anything else to do—or anyone else to talk to, for that matter—but Tifa didn't want him thinking she enjoyed his company and that it was acceptable for him to make a habit of dropping in on her while she was less than decent.

His eyebrow arched, at either her answer or lack of one. "All right. How was the water today? Warm? Blue? Salty?"

Tifa frowned, remembering three hearts and nine years. "Why?"

He twisted around fully and settled a hand on the ground. "You wanted to talk about something bland and impersonal," he said, looking at her. "I'm indulging you. Now it's your turn to indulge me. Answer."

"Fine," Tifa said, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. "It was all of them, I guess."

He nodded at her answer, as if he was pleased to find the ocean exactly how it should be. "And do you like this place?"

"I suppose I do. It's warm. It's got trees. The view's nice." She thought of Cloud again, and it made her angry. It should've been him she was having this conversation with, not his bastard shadow. "Look, what do you want? Why the sudden interest in my welfare, or is this just more of you trying to get to me? I mean, I find it hard to believe this is a casual visit. Why isn't your sword swinging at me yet?"

The idea amused him enough to warrant a brief smile. "And what purpose would that serve?"

"I have no idea," Tifa said. "I thought your dislike was indiscriminate."

"Then by all means," Sephiroth said, sweeping a hand in invitation, "feel free to list the people my dislike has indiscriminately killed."

Tifa dug through her memory banks trying to disinter some corpse he was responsible for. Admittedly, she was coming up empty-handed, but that didn't mean he was innocent. He looked, sounded and acted too much the part to not be evil in some way.

"I'm waiting, Tifa." He gave her a penetrating stare which she tried not to squirm under. "I imagine since this list is very long there must be some name you can dredge up."

She couldn't, but he didn't need to know that. "Let's talk about why you're here instead."

"You couldn't think of anyone, could you?" Sephiroth said knowingly. "You shouldn't assume things about me. It makes you look very foolish."

"We were talking about why _you're_ here," Tifa reminded him, red-faced.

Sephiroth stood up and brushed the sand from his clothing. He gave her another long stare before turning away to look up at the sky, at the ocean, at the shore. "Tell me," he said, as a small, coral-colored crab scuttled across the sand. "Where would you go, what would you do when your life's meaning has no use for you any more?"

So the civilities were over. She should've known it wouldn't last the duration of his visit—the man never could pass up a chance to taunt. "I could ask you the same thing," Tifa replied testily.

He blinked. "You have no idea," he said, almost pityingly. His eyes met hers again. "He'll always have a need for the darkness—remember, he found me, not the other way around. Ask yourself why he never searches for you."

Tifa lifted her chin. "He doesn't have to search. He knows—"

"That you'll be searching for him instead? That no matter how desperate you become, no matter how pathetic you grow, you'll continue to search until you find him. Is this what he knows?"

He was getting good at those verbal backhands, Tifa thought. She even flinched this time. "Go to hell, Sephiroth."

His lips curved. "As you wish," Sephiroth said, opening his wings.

Then he was gone, leaving Tifa standing there, alone and dripping, wondering what _she_ knew.

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Comments are appreciated!


	4. Chapter Three

Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts.

**AN:** I was tripped up by more edits, this time pretty substantial ones. Just can't leave well enough alone, can I?

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**CHAPTER THREE**

_Her head turned to where he lay next to her on the blanket. "Would you still love me if a tree fell on me?"_

_"I would still love you if a tree fell on you," his profile answered with a smile._

_She grinned back at him. "Would you still love me if lightning hit me and set me on fire?" _

_"Tifa..." Cloud rolled his head toward hers. "You'd probably be dead."_

_"So? You would still love me if I were dead, wouldn't you?"_

_He sighed, but she knew it was for her benefit, not his. "Yes, I would still love you."_

_She beamed smugly at him and squinted up at the woolly clouds grazing in the pasture of the sky. "Would you love me if a herd of...of..." She frowned. "...Of..."_

_"Of?" he prodded._

_"Oh, I don't know!" she huffed. "Use your imagination, but think of something large and...herdish. Would you still love me if—?"_

_"Tifa," he said solemnly. "I'll always love you."_

_

* * *

_

She had known she wouldn't find him here, not with its flat, expressionless plains and—

_Baobabs, _a bird with a gaudy beak told her. The odd trees with roots for branches and hollow-swollen trunks were _baobabs_.

_Then I am a baobab now,_ Tifa thought. _I am roots where I shouldn't be and empty when I should be full. I have become something that exists only to break up the dry terrain. _

She would also call herself a shadow of who she used to be, but she couldn't remember who that was any more. The Tifa who had read novels, swum in dark ponds and lain carefree under the sky was gone, lost during the last year like a shirt button. The woman she had been was missing and in her stead was an empty place.

A storm cloud of dust, low on the horizon, caught Tifa's eye. Through the haze, she could make out a hundred racing bodies, covered in black and white lines that streaked downward like lightning. Thunder from a thousand hooves throbbed up from the ground to her ankles and knees. She hadn't known this empty green- and straw-colored grassland had a heartbeat, and yet here it was, a wild tempest headed for her, straining for some point beyond her, destined for something greater than landscape.

Could she somehow be a part of it? She had been chasing forever, could she not also flee forever? Her two legs could do everything four legs could. She, too, could raise the earth to dust. She, too, could run so free and fast she blurred to gray. The incessant tremor in the ground reverberated in her legs, in her nerves, in all the secret parts of her, and whispered to her how much better life was as something more than a tree. _Be one of us_,it hummed. _Be one of us_.

Tifa tried to shake the sight, sound and idea from her head. No, she couldn't. She was three broken hearts and an ocean of tears. She was a funny tree with a funny name. She was static and firmly rooted into dry, cracked truths, waiting for the smell of rain to remind her that happiness came from clouds. She was not one of _them_. _I am a baobab, _she said. _I am a tree_. _I am a tree_.

But she was a woman when the gray storm overtook her. A rush of noise filled up and deafened her ears. Dust from a thousand resolved hooves rose up and choked up her nose and throat. A terrible, tremulous fear began to take hold of her as black and white bodies crowded, jostled and threatened to carry her away—or worse, shatter her into a million splinters.

_One of us, _whispered a voice above the sound and chaos._ You can. You can. You can._

_I can't!_ Tifa thought in despair. All around her, majestic black and white heads were bending in pity. She wiped her tears with the back of a wrist and told herself not to be afraid, then Tifa raised her chin to the tide, defiant. She closed her eyes and imagined she was a rock parting a swift-moving river. Imagined she was long-legged and striking ground. Imagined she was running, fluid and fleet, across the packed earth, across salted oceans, across yards of memories. Imagined she was anything but invisible. Imagined she was happy and whole, once again.

"Well, this is unexpected."

She nearly fell, so sudden and obtrusive was the voice. Her eyes jolted open. The river was gone; the last _thud-thud_ of hooves grew faint beneath her feet, like a paling, dying pulse, leaving him—a different black and white, yet one just as precarious—in its wake. Tifa was surprised yet not surprised to see Sephiroth standing before her; she was a tree again, not a rock. He always seemed to catch her at her weakest.

His eyes brought the first entrance of winter into this summer country. "What were you hoping to accomplish?" he said, and as he spoke, he circled her, wrapping his words around her left shoulder, dribbling them down her spine, and skimming them along the hairs of her right arm."Did you expect your recklessness to bring him here? Did you expect him to come running to save you?"

His boots had mapped a fence around hers in the hoof-pocked earth. She could feel him studying the top of her head, her branches, likely looking for something to wound her with. "Why are you here in this" —he looked around in disdain— "place?"

_One of us. One of us, _came the whisper. It was a seductive enough to leave her with an ache, but it wasn't enough to shake the dead from her leaves, the woodenness from her answer. "Because I want to be," Tifa murmured.

Sephiroth's teeth flashed. Tifa waited for the accompanying thunder, but he only said, "I see. And what else do you want?"

Tifa said nothing._ I am a tree, _she thought_._ Trees looked to the sky for salvation, did they not? She lifted her eyes to it, hoping an answer could be found in it, but it, too, was cloudless.

"Shall I ask you a different question, then?" he said. "Which does that heart of yours yearn for more—him," there was a snort in the syllable, "or to be free of him?"

He folded his arms, and for the first time she noticed an absence of gloves. Encased in flesh instead of impersonal black, his hand gave him back a sort of humanity. Her eyes snagged on the two fingers he steadily tapped at his elbow—_t__hud-thud, _like a heartbeat_._ Did that mean he was alive and she wasn't?

"I'm waiting, Tifa," he said._ Thud-thud._

She continued to stare at his fingers. The nails were neatly clipped until there was only a thin thread of white showing. Her own nails were thick straps of black. "I don't know."

"Do you still dream of him at night?" he asked. When she shook her head, Sephiroth leaned in and sniffed delicately at the rounded corner of her jaw. His nose brushed against a cheekbone; his breath moved the strands of hairs that lingered at her ear. "Then what do you dream of, Tifa?" he whispered.

_Tifa, I'll always love you. _

She felt her roots yearning, stretching toward the border at her feet. She blinked.

"Nothing," Tifa answered. "I dream of nothing."

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**AN:** If you are reading and enjoying this, could you let me know? I'd be very grateful.


	5. Chapter Four

Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts.

**AN:** Thank you, thank you to those who left reviews for the last chapter. I understand reviewing takes time and effort and even a little courage, and I appreciate those who are willing to make that investment for this story.

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**CHAPTER FOUR**

_"Where have you been all my life?" he said. _

_She'd heard the line before, in more charming circumstances and from handsomer men, but she particularly liked the static in his voice and the way his blue eyes stayed above her neck._

* * *

The wind was a love song. It called her from the pink smell of blossoming trees into the white, empty mountains with promises of love. It pushed the hair back from her face, cupped her cheeks with its biting, terrible hands, and told her it loved the way she used to smile.

Tifa followed it through quiet villages, across half-drowned fields of coned hats, up neglected paths until the song became a high, thin howl. The ground beneath her had been bled of the color pink, the color green, the color yellow and its friend, purple—of every color in the wheel—until there was only empty white.

_Love, lovely, loved_, the wind said. _I love you_.

It was a love song, and yet it was cold like silence or a shoulder was cold. Tifa rubbed her bare arms, wishing the falling flurries were petals, or dandelion seeds, or something that might make the wind less of a liar. _No, you don't_, she answered. _Though I will scale this mountain for you, you won't_.

_I love you_, the wind said again. _I have always_.

_No! I don't believe you_, Tifa said. _Words. They don't warm anything inside any more_.

_There's nothing inside to warm_, it retorted. _Knock, knock. You're all hollow. Like an uprooted tree. Dead_. _A herd of something large could trample you into dust._

_You're wrong, _Tifa said. She sank to her knees, tired, and let the snow burn her ankles and shins. _You're wrong!_

_Then prove it_.

She burrowed down through her strata, down through muscle and bone, down, down to the heart of her, to see if anything remained of the girl who chased the sun. She found a yearning, hot and bright as a flickering match, for something more. _See? __There's plenty, _she cried_. You're not looking hard enough!_

But the wind only gusted in a spiral around her legs. It pinched the ends of her hair and turned them, stinging, against her reddened skin. _You're lying to yourself, _the wind continued, relentless. _D__eep down inside you're trying to make up for a broken promise_.

She clapped her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut. _I'm not! You lie! I'm not! I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm—_

"Foolish." Strong hands clamped over her arms and hauled her upright. "Your stupidity runs as deep as your naiveté."

The ground crunched and the wind howled as she was pulled along like a naughty child. A wall of rock appeared beneath the tips of her wet hair just before she was dumped into someone's lap. Black feathers snapped up around them as a crude sort of shelter which the wind beat against like an uninvited guest.

"Foolish," Sephiroth repeated. Strands of his hair caught and dragged on the rock edges behind him as he shifted her into a better position. "I would ask you what you were thinking, but I already know you weren't. Were you aware that there are dragons living up here?"

She wasn't.

"Have you ever seen one before?" Sephiroth asked.

She hadn't.

His breath was a chilly cloud of ash in the dimness. "You wouldn't like them," Sephiroth told her. "They would have smelled you and taken you to exist someplace in the dark. Whether you lived or died would've depended on how shiny your hair was, or how high you could jump, or which direction the trees bent, or some other nonsense. Is that what you want? Do you want your life hanging on something as trivial as a dragon's whims?"

She shook her head.

"I don't believe you, Tifa. You're courting either death or dragons—or worse—with your arms and legs and whatever else you haven't got the sense to cover up. I have long suspected I gave you more credit than you deserved, but this continued recklessness of yours is a revelation."

His heartbeat and his voice were tremors through his chest, great thunderclaps trapped beneath leather and lungs and ribs—if she tore him open would it rain? She drew her legs up into the shelter of his body and pressed herself closer to better hear them. _Thud-thud_. The sound was too hot against her ear. She lifted her head to distract herself with his wrongly colored eyes.

"Could it be?" He stopped and was silent for a moment, studying her. Then he wondered, breath hot against her ear, "Do you want to live in the dark, Tifa?"

A gloved hand crept up a calf and along the outside of a knee before stopping at her thigh. The nerves above her shoulder blades shivered. She should stop him. She should push his hand away, break through this strange cocoon of wings and man, and let the wind convince her she was broken and invisible. But she particularly liked the way his blue eyes stayed above her neck.

_I'm not dead_, she gloated. _I'm not_.

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Comments are appreciated!


	6. Chapter Five

Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts.

**AN:** We're rapidly approaching the point where I run out of old chapters to edit and have to start making up new—in fact, this was the last chapter when _Gray_ was posted the first time. Might as well prepare yourself now for slower updates. Sad, but true story: quality (or a facsimile of) requires time.

Also, during my absence from ffnet, I wrote an alternative chapter to this one, in Sephiroth's POV. I'm undecided on when I'll post it, if it'll be before or after I finish _Gray_.

* * *

**CHAPTER FIVE**

_"I should fight you, you know," he said._

_"But you won't," she said in a knowing tone. "You love me too much."_

_He sighed. "You're right. But kiss me, at least. After all, I'm doing this for you."_

_She rolled her eyes. "Oh, Cloud," she said. "It's just a birthday party. It won't kill you." But she gave him what he wanted anyway._

_

* * *

_

He wasn't here, but there was evidence of a recent battle. Several deep gouges had been hewn into the stone steps flanking the arena. A column was broken and lying on its side in three pieces. Discarded potion bottles lay like corpses in sand pocked by footfalls and too numerous to count.

She walked through the empty area in wonder. Though the arena had once been alive with sound and fury, it was now silent and still. The night air was cold and indifferent, the sky punctured with stars that kept to themselves. Under her bare feet, the shifting ground whispered words she couldn't understand, and, for the first time, despite a year of being alone, Tifa felt lonely.

She rubbed her arms, as if suddenly chilled, and sank down on the lowest ledge of steps. She'd been here before; Cloud had been with her then. The air hadn't been still, it had been vibrant. Above them, the sky had been bright with the sun. She stared at the shadows in the sand, willing them to move, to attach themselves to living memories. She remembered _e__lectricity tripping through the hairs on her arms. Nerves alight with adrenaline_. She remembered her body moving, twisting, punching, swinging and _oh gods, oh planet, oh stars above! _Alive! She had been alive!

A loud wail escaped her as she slid from the hard ledge. She had been alive once, but what was she now? Hard grits of sand dug into her knees and forearms as she sank down, doubled over, and tried to turn herself inside out to find the answer. Grief, then pride, then pity, then everything else that was left over came spilling out until all that remained was an ache, a tumor, an ugly lump of doubt in the shape of her heart. Yes, her heart was the culprit. It was pumping her veins with bitterness and choking her arteries with grudge. Sobbing, she clawed at her chest, trying to free herself of it.

"You!" Tifa cried. She coughed as dust and shame tightened her throat. Angry at herself, at her body for failing her, she pounded a fist into the sand then rolled onto her back and jammed the heels of her palms to her wet eyes. "I was doing this for you!" she shouted as loud as she could. _"For you!"_

_For you! __For you! _the walls shouted back._ For you! __For you! _Tifa listened to it echo all around the hollow arena until it was a rally cry. _For you! For you! For you! _

But_ For whom? _was the question she was left with after the stones swallowed the noise and left her in silence. For a long while Tifa lay in the sand, breathing in the hush surrounding her, asking herself a multitude of things she had no answers for. With a resigned, shaky inhale she tentatively slid her hands from her eyes and blinked up at the glittery, endless ocean above. It had become fuller somehow, less indifferent, more inviting. She felt less like an intruder and more like _one of us_.

She put a hand on her chest, over her heart, and felt a pulsing beat underneath. _Thud-thud. __Yes_, Tifa thought. "I'm not dead."

A dark shape leaned over her, blotting out the stars above. "Then what are you, Tifa?"

The face was in shadow, but Tifa had no doubt of who it was. Under her hand, her heart beat a little faster. "Sephiroth," she said with a little, involuntary smile.

It seemed to startle him; he shifted suddenly, away from her. She caught the sharp outline of his jaw as he turned his face to stare at the sky in wordless introspection. Minutes that felt like an eternity passed before he finally asked, "What are you doing here, Tifa?"

"Stargazing," she said, blinking up at him.

"Stargazing." His head angled back down at her. "I see. And do you think you'll find anything, up there?"

"I already have."

Feathers rustled and leather creaked as Sephiroth lowered himself to his haunches. His hair fell around her as he leaned down to study her. "What did you find?" he asked.

His face was close enough for Tifa to see beyond the pockets of shadow to the terrain underneath. There were indentations and scars in the skin and several places that were too loose or too pinched. He looked almost weary, almost vulnerable. Up close, she could see he was imperfect, and imperfection meant he was human, breakable. _One of us_.

Tifa heard herself swallow. "I should fight you, you know," she said quietly. "I should take my right hand, make it into a fist, and crack your long nose with it."

He stilled, as if waiting for her to make good on her threat, then made a sound like a laugh in his throat. "And how do you know I'd let you? If I saw your fist coming, do you really think I'd let you hit me?"

Tifa smiled, because she knew he wouldn't. "Then what would you do?" she asked.

Sephiroth made a slight shrug. "I'd jump back, most likely, and summon my sword while you're struggling to your feet."

"And how do you know I would struggle?" Tifa asked. "What if I rolled _gracefully_ to the side then charged you while you were still summoning?"

"Then perhaps I'd see you coming and sidestep."

Tifa nodded and closed her eyes to better imagine it. "Then as you were sidestepping, I'd make a grab for one of your wings—"

"You'd be better off going for my coat," his voice advised. "Feathers are more likely to come loose and compromise your handhold."

"Point taken. Then I'd go for your coat instead and I'd use it to slingshot my momentum upward into a kick aimed at your head."

"And I, of course, would block it."

"And I, of course, would spin out of it and land on my feet."

"I doubt you'd land on your feet," Sephiroth said matter-of-factly, "Because I would kick you in the ribs while you were falling, hard enough to break a few. You'd be crumpled on the ground, groaning in pain, but I'd kick you there, in the ribs, again and again, and the last kick would be hard enough to send you onto your back—like you are now—and before you had a chance to move, I'd take my sword—which I would've by now summoned—aim it at your heart, and ki—"

Silence.

Tifa's eyes flew open. Sephiroth was still leaning over her, staring down at her. "You'd what?" Tifa demanded. "Say it!"

"You know what I'd do," he said evenly.

"Then say it," Tifa whispered. "Do it."

His mouth was hard on hers before she could brace herself. It was clumsy and misjudged and upside down—his chin caught her nose, her chin bumped his cheek—but she wanted it. _O__h gods, oh planet, oh stars above!_ she wanted it. Her fingers knotted in his hair, while he cradled her head and thumbed the lines of her neck. Teeth scraped, tongues swept, and then it was over, as quickly as it had begun.

"I told you," Sephiroth panted, snapping his wings open. "I don't indiscriminately kill." His shadow was a chunk of missing sky as he took flight.

Tifa put a hand to her still-wet mouth, stunned, and unbelievably alive.

* * *

**AN:** I put it at the end of every chapter, but, well... A genuine thank you to **Tiy**, **Eclipse Storywriter**, **Destination-Zero**, **Lindsey**, **NanaG**, **Atramentous Love** and **Kick-It-Aus Style-Mal's** for taking me seriously when I say comments are appreciated.


	7. Chapter Six

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Kingdom Hearts (unless you count the game) or any of its characters.

**AN:** Ha! I bet you thought I'd died—me too! First vacation, then school starting (though not for me), then overload at work, then a nasty sinus infection. But I never forgot about this story and hopefully you didn't either.

I've decided to post the alt-POV of last chapter after _Gray_ is done. Some of you have told me the intrigue of _Gray_ is not knowing Sephiroth's thoughts and I'd have to agree. So there you go!

Also, I'd like to thank Gaston Leroux for the first (non-flashback) line, paraphrased, and my son for thinking I'm a great writer. And thank you to those who have left reviews. I can't tell you how far a review can go in reminding me of why I keep coming back to this.

* * *

**CHAPTER SIX**

_"What are these?" she asked, surprised._

_"Roses," Cloud answered. "A dozen of them. Red—your favorite."_

_Tifa smiled, but said nothing. She didn't have the heart to tell him she'd always preferred white._

_

* * *

_

He kissed her...and she did not die.

However, the state she was left in in the wake of that kiss was worse than death. Alive, yet torn in two ragged, breathing halves, Tifa lay in the sand until dawn, eyes upturned to the sky and the stars dimming in it, waiting for either answers or _him. _And when neither came, she let the confusion in her chest lead her from an arena to a maze, to hedge walls taller than any man's hair, where possibly he wouldn't find her, _where possibly he would_, where possibly she would find herself touching her lips over and over and thinking, _Not dead, no, but dying_.

_This is what happens when you're no longer hollow,_ the hedges whispered_. _

Theirdark and waxy laughter followed her as Tifa wandered through their winding, mathematical passages for what seemed like an eternity. The sun was high above her head, but all she could see was green, all she could hear was rustling. Everywhere she turned, she was met with more walls and more mocking laughter. Her mouth felt on fire, as if it had been branded. _Cruel! Betrayer! How could you?_ they taunted, spinning their words in her head as they spun her around in their aisles, until at last she could take no more. Tired and desolate and heavy with guilt, Tifa sank down to the grass and tried to curl into herself until there was nothing left, not even her smile.

_He kissed me and I did not die...but I am_. The thought was an echo between her ears as blades of grass prickled her skin and the smell of damp earth slowly seeped into her nostrils and clothes. Like a tight knot, she lay between green, living walls waiting for death. _He kissed me and I did not die...but I am_. Her heart had been racing before, but now she could hear the treacherous thing slowing. Thud-thud. Thud-thud. Slowing, slowing, and it would keep on slowing until it became stopped and broken, of no use for anything or anyone. Then she would die. Then she would gloat: _Try to find me now! _

Thud-thud. Thud-

But she did not die. Something caught her eye first.

Thud. Thud-thud.

A flash of white but already gone, disappeared around the hedge corner like a rabbit's tail. Surprised, Tifa leapt to her feet and dashed after it, but when she rounded the corner she caught sight of it vanishing around another edge. Impulsively, she followed, but no matter how many corners or how lengthy the corridor, it was always just out of sight. _How is this possible?_ a part of her mind wondered, but at least it had kept her from dying.

On and on the chase went until the walls finally broke open to reveal an exit. Tifa came to an abrupt halt before it, then stood with one hand at her mouth, awed at what lay beyond. It looked like an orchard of white fruit, only it wasn't an orchard at all but a garden of roses. There must've been a thousand of them, all a perfect shade of white, all hanging on lolly-shaped trees from fragile, angry stems.

The labyrinth was quickly abandoned in favor of this sublime, new wonderland. As Tifa threaded her way through the rose-filled trees, she could feel happiness spreading across her face like a sunburn. When was the last time she had felt this light, this giddy? She wanted to laugh at the marvelous feeling of being free of sadness, free of guilt, free of death. She wanted to stay in this place, inhaling its sweet, rain-like perfume forever. She wanted to run and twirl and dance. She wanted to fall in love.

Then she saw him, a few trees over.

How he had escaped her notice was beyond Tifa, because he was a most curious sight. He was a playing card, like the kind her father taught her to play rummy with but as tall as herself and with a man's head somehow perched at the top edge of it and arms and legs somehow attached to the sides and bottom. The arrangement of body parts and paper looked like a precarious one to Tifa, but the expression on the card's face looked neither doubtful nor frightened. Indeed, it was even humming a little tune, jovial and jaunty enough to send the paint bucket and brush in its hands bouncing.

Despite the card's bizarre appearance, Tifa found herself grinning at it. How full of life it looked! When it turned its attention to the nearest rose, however, and dipped its brush in the bucket of paint, Tifa's smile wavered. She told herself she was being silly, that everyone knew roses couldn't be painted, but in the next instance, the card took its brush and, in one cruel swipe, turned a white rose red.

"No!"

But the card was deaf to Tifa's cry. It dipped and waved and another rose became red, and another, and another, until the ground beneath the tree was dotted with great globs of paint. As the gleeful, humming card danced to the next tree, Tifa looked around the garden, wild-eyed. No! Impossible! The thought of all these lovely white roses being covered with red made her sick with horror—but what could she do? She neither owned nor belonged in this place. Helplessly, she watched as another tree was painted until it dripped with red. When the card skipped over to the tree next to her, Tifa turned away, unable to stomach any more.

Then came a rasping, almost musical noise, like the sound of paper being cut from behind by an impossibly long sword. Tifa turned in time to see the bucket of paint crash to the ground, bleeding its contents into a thick red puddle. She looked up at the card's face and the expression on it was almost comical. Its eyes were opened as wide as they could go and its mouth was frozen as if in a silent, surprised _Oh!_ It blinked once, twice, and just before it could blink a third time, gravity brought the top half of the card skimming down like a guillotine. Then both halves fell at a pair of black boots as a corpse of paper and improbable body parts.

Dumbfounded, Tifa forced her eyes from it, from the puddle of paint it lay in, and asked the man standing above it, "Why?"

Sephiroth's sword was a harsh, elegant sound as he hid it away at his side. "It's what you wanted," he told her.

Tifa shook her head. "No, that isn't what I wanted. Not like that, not like death."

"No?" He stepped on the card's remains as if they were nothing more than a convenience from the puddle and approached her. "Then what did you want? Tell me."

His voice was mellow and seductive. "I don't know," Tifa protested, backing away. "I used to be, but I'm not certain of anything any more."

"The root of your problems," Sephiroth answered.

He reached out and caught her arm. She put a hand out to stop him from drawing her closer, but it was futile. He was already too near. If only she didn't notice a bruise on his cheek that hadn't been there before. If only his mouth wasn't so shamefully familiar. If only she could go back to a time when all she wanted to read in his face was contempt.

"You're the root of my problems," she said sullenly. "You come around me pretending to be nice, but really you're all sword and talk. You only exist to wound. It'll never be anything else with you."

Sephiroth's nostrils flared. He looked down at her, his expression full of thorns, and said, "Next time... Next time, foolish girl, I will remind myself to stand aside and do nothing and let your whole beloved world turn red." Then he shoved her away and stalked off.

Tifa watched him leave with mixed emotions. Absently, she rubbed her arm; it had been so long since he last wounded her, she'd almost forgotten he could. But what of him? He seemed almost... Had she hurt him too? _Don't be ridiculous_, a voice told her. Hurt Sephiroth with words? It made her laugh a little. Ridiculous, indeed. Almost as ridiculous as a walking, dancing, painting playing card.

Tifa glanced down at the puddle of paint, where the two card halves were, and sighed._ I never meant for this to happen. I'm so sorry._ She leaned down to close the card's eyelids, but something made her gasp and pull her hand back as if burned. What she had thought was a man's head was nothing more than a paper facsimile; the hands, too, were flat. The bucket and paintbrush were the only real items lying in the grass, and a white rose, which lay half-buried under a corner of the card. Tifa picked it up, taking care to avoid the thorns, and examined it. It had been severed from its tree by a clean, angled cut—possibly by a sword? But if not a sword, then by what? She was now more confused than ever.

_This is what happens when you're no longer hollow._

She could still see him, a fair distance away but not so far she couldn't catch him if she wanted to. _Answers_, she told herself, running after him. _That's all_. But she had underestimated either the distance or his mood. No matter how fast she ran, his long, angry strides always kept him ahead. He led her over trimmed lawns and through low, clipped hedges until he reached the edge of a forest and plunged into it. She had no choice but to follow. Once inside, she could make out a faint path running through it, but beyond its boundaries lay an impenetrable blackness. Not even trees could be seen in it.

Tifa stumbled along the trail until the sway of white hair ahead of her vanished. Panic threatened to overtake her. "Sephiroth!" she called, but there was no answer. "Sephiroth? Sephiroth!" She rubbed her arms, waiting, but still nothing.

"Perhaps you could try another name?" said a voice from somewhere in the darkness. "The one you want seems to be gone."

Tifa tensed. At her hips, her hands formed into fists. "Who are you? Show yourself!"

A softly glowing shape appeared in the darkness. Since it was well off the path and high above Tifa's head, she assumed it was sitting in a tree, and as it started taking on solidity she could see why. It was a cat, but it was covered from head to tail in the most remarkable purple stripes.

"Who are you?" Tifa asked it.

"Isn't it obvious? A cat," it said. "Who are you?"

"I'm—" She stopped. He hadn't said her name this time.

"Not sure?" the cat said. "'And all the king's horses and all the king's men...'" it chanted, "Who will put you back together again?"

"I don't know!" Tifa told the cat. "That's all I say any more: 'I don't know, I don't know' and I'm getting"—she clenched her fists again—"Ouch!" She'd forgotten about the rose in her hand.

"Thorns," the cat said in a knowing voice. It licked at a paw. "Are you bleeding?"

Tifa opened her hand. All she could make out was the white petals, now gray in the dim forest lighting. "I don't know. I can't see anything."

"Then open your eyes," said the cat.

She looked up at it. "But they are—" _open_, she was going to say, but her mouth just hung there, slack-jawed like a kid at a cotton candy drum at the impossible sight of the cat fading out—stripe-by-stripe, part-by-part—until the only thing left was the hanging half-moon of its grin.

"Then close them," the teeth said. Then they too disappeared and Tifa was left alone in the dark, silent forest, more lost than ever. But far from dead.

* * *

**AN:** No doubt, some of you from my now-defunct LJ might remember this chapter as being, um, different originally. That's because it is. Evil laugh!

Comments are appreciated!


	8. Chapter Seven

Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts.

**AN: **So, guess what? I'm not dead, nor is this story. We just like to pretend we are every once in a while. Many, many thanks to those who left reviews during the hiatus! I'll try not to let another two years pass before I update again.**  
**

Also, Happy (late) Thanksgiving/Merry (early) Christmas to Lindsey, Lizz and Arya, and everyone else who were waiting patiently for another chapter. I don't deserve you guys.

**ALSO:** Consider this a Public Service Announcement. I understand that reading has moved to cell phones for a lot of you. I understand that also makes it harder to review. Look, I get it. I'm typing this out on my phone, actually, and autocorrect keeps inserting in bizarre shit. But, please, I ask you to remember the writers. If quality takes extra time, can you not reciprocate with some ("ozone"- per autocorrect) extra time of your own? Whether that means battling ("barreling") the bizarre ("chi are") shit or sending one later from a computer, it could save a writer from discouragement and a story ("sort tort") from discontinuation.

* * *

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

_He had gotten into another fight._

_As she dabbed at the cut on his lip with the cleanest rag she could find, she asked, "Why this time?"_

_He shrugged. "I saw him talking to you earlier. I didn't like it."_

_Her aim had always been good; the rag hit him square in the chest then fell to the counter. "He was ordering a drink! How many times do I have to tell you, I'm a bartender, that's what people talk to me for! Did it ever occur to you that maybe you misjudged him?" _

_She pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes in frustration, waiting for the words she'd heard many times before. _

"_Sorry," he said. "It won't happen again."_

* * *

It was as nightmarish as a closet's dark depths and as frightening as the space under a child's bed at night. There were no stars in this new place, only a cold, flat moon hung in a ceaseless backdrop of shadow. Below it lay a world out of someone's macabre dream. Hard gray hills, grassless and raked with scars, rose and fell in chaotic waves. Tall, cadaverous trees huddled together in secretive clusters, their branches thin like bones. Even the wind spoke in dry, dying words.

But she knew he could be here, very likely _would_ be here, and the simple question—_stay or go?_—flitted about her numb mind like a restless spirit.

She could stay here, in the same spot where she had stepped from a forest's darkness only a moment ago and then stopped, where her breath had also stopped, and where her heart was beating a signal loud enough for any creature that might want it. Or she could take a step backward, wind her way under the thick trees to the sunlight and sky and wonderland maze of green. Go back to where there were stars, sand, seas and snow, back to where there was still a chance she would find _him_.

_Him. _Her bottom lip curled. Her hands fisted at her side. She took a step forward, chin high.

"No more," she said.

"No more," she said again.

"No more," she said a third time.

She started her way through the tortured terrain, prepared to encounter the worst, but no hands came to grab her. No claws came to shred her. No teeth came to bleed her. Her heart was still her own, still hiding under her breast with its secrets, and not anguishing in some creature's stomach. And at the top of her fourth hill, she stood, hands on hips, surveying the land, and thought, _I think I misjudged you_.

After a time the hills gave way to a field of jack-o'-lanterns, which gave way to the twisted iron bars and broken walls of a cemetery. Beyond the grotesque statues and tombstones, she found an interesting thing—a slope, the peak of which no longer pointed up, but had been stretched until thin then left to hang and curl like a bowed head. But even more interesting than the slope was what she discovered at its base. There, beneath the spiraled peak, she found what she was looking for.

He lay half on his side, one knee slightly bent, a long line of legs, leather and wings. His hair fanned around a head pillowed by a bent arm, and his chest was visibly rising and falling in what appeared to be a deep slumber. That someone like Sephiroth would ever tire, ever require something mundane as sleep, never occurred to Tifa. Awake, he was such a force of nature, constant and unstoppable, that she assumed he could never be stopped.

It was a rare opportunity, serendipitous, a twist of fate, and she found herself to be quite unstoppable as she knelt down for a closer look—the man had no qualms at invading _her_ personal space, she told herself. Sleep had peeled away the mask he usually wore and revealed peculiarities she had never noticed before: pores, lines, eyebrows, lashes, a handful of freckles, cheekbones—a bruise still lingering on one—a chin. His mouth, however, she had already met. She blushed, remembering also her introduction to his teeth and tongue, his touch. It made her feel something like an ache, low. She squeezed her knees together, trying to quell it. _Vulnerable and human_, she had thought of him once, _then_. _But what am I? _she thought now. _Have I been alone too long?_

"I should fight you, you know," she whispered.

A hand suddenly clamped around her wrist, and in a flash Tifa found herself pulled down and lying flat on her back. She was acutely aware of his right arm drawn painfully tight across her abdomen, pinning her arms to her sides, and his leg locking both of hers together. She was trapped.

"Go on, then," a husky voice said into her ear. "Fight me."

She blinked up at the spiraled peak dangling overhead and the dark sky beyond it. _So quick! _she thought. How long had he been secretly watching her secretly watch him? "I thought you were asleep," she said.

"I was, but _someone_ woke me up." The heat from his breath tickled the skin of her ear, stirred the hairs at her cheek. "Were you looking for _him_? I've been told we do share similarities, but unfortunately for you I'm mostly 'sword and talk.'"

"No," Tifa said firmly. Hadn't she decided she was done looking for _him_? "I was looking for _you_. I think..." She took a deep breath, pictured herself surveying an ocean of scarred gray. "I think I misjudged you. About what I said earlier—'sword and talk'—I'm sorry. I was wrong."

His arm and leg loosened their hold, but he said nothing. It was possible he hadn't even heard her. "Sephiroth?"

"Quiet."

"But—"

"I've never been apologized to before. I'm still...processing it."

Guilt hit as a hard knot between her eyebrows, bringing a sting to her eyes. She tried blinking it away, looking it away, exhaling it away, anything just to make it go away, but it stayed where it was, stubborn, until her heart came to lock it away with the rest of its secrets. _Vulnerable and human, _she thought again. _We both are_.

"There's a story," his voice said suddenly. "I've heard the locals refer to it a time or two."

"Oh?" Her eyes flew open. "What is it about?"

"About the one who rules over this world. Once, long ago, he wanted to be something else, something less monstrous."

"And what happened?"

A huff, possibly even a laugh, stirred her hair. "Disaster, near-ruination of multiple worlds, et cetera. But in spite of that—or _because_ of that—he returned, greatly enlightened, took up his monstrosity with renewed vigor, and lived happily ever after as a cautionary tale for the wayward."

"Oh." She felt his nose trace the curve of her ear. "Do you, um, like that story?" she asked.

"Not particularly." His nose skimmed down her neck. "I feel he lacked determination. If there were something I wanted, nothing would stop me from getting it."

"Is there, _ah_—" His breath had touched the sensitive spot where her neck met her shoulder, and, _oh stars_, the low ache had returned. Her thighs squirmed against each other. "Something you want?"

He lifted himself, settling on an elbow, and even in the pale light of the moon she could see the answer in his eyes. They roamed the landscape of her face like a searchlight, eventually settling on her mouth, much like she had done to him only moments ago. Was he thinking what she had been thinking? Did he remember what she had remembered? Her lips parted in anticipation. This time there'd be more than one, and there wouldn't be any guilt afterward, she promised herself.

But he didn't kiss her.

She blinked, mute, as he rolled away, sat up and got to his feet. No farewell or backward glance or his usual cutting remark, she watched him walk brusquely away, past the grotesque statues and tombstones, through the broken walls and twisted iron bars of the cemetery, along a field of jack-o'-lanterns, and then she watched him disappear. _Stay_, she could've said. _Don't go_. But she only sat there under a lone, curled slope, knees drawn up under her chin, red-faced, wondering if she'd misjudged herself.

* * *

Comments are appreciated!


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